These approaches seek to establish general laws of human behaviour. These provide a 'benchmark' for behaviours to be compared and measured against. They also allow for predictions to be made in the future.
Describe methods of idiographic approaches.
These approaches are more closely aligned with less scientific research methods such as unstructured interviews or case studies. This reflects the central aim of idiographic research to capture the richness of the human experience, collecting qualitative data.
Describe an idiographic approach.
These approaches attempt to understand and describe the uniqueness of a person. There is no attempt to generalise the behaviours to others or to make comparisons with other groups of people.
Describe the methods of nomothetic approaches.
The nomothetic approach is most closely aligned with scientific research methods such as experiments. Using testable hypotheses, this allows for large numbers of people to be studied to establish general laws about the way they behave based on large sets of quantitative data collected.
Objectivity vs Subjectivity.
Idiographic approaches are more subjective whereas nomothetic approaches are more objective.
